Tag: Judges

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Embracing Uncertainty

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Judges 6 Listen: (6:15) Read: Titus 1 Listen: (2:24)

Scripture Focus: Judges 6:39-40

39 Then Gideon said to God, “Do not be angry with me. Let me make just one more request. Allow me one more test with the fleece, but this time make the fleece dry and let the ground be covered with dew.” 40 That night God did so. Only the fleece was dry; all the ground was covered with dew.

John 14:8

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”

Reflection: Embracing Uncertainty

By Erin Newton

Anxiety was always part of my life, so adding it to my faith was natural.

If your early days in the faith look like mine, you repeatedly prayed for supernatural signs. I always needed God to prove my salvation was secure. Did that prayer “stick”? Maybe I should do it again.

When I read Scripture that spoke of “ye of little faith,” I was the “ye.” Paired with comments that doubting was a lack of faith, I assumed my doubt meant my faith was in jeopardy.

Unfortunately, this mindset about faith caused me to read the story of Gideon in a condescending way. Gideon, he of little faith. An Old Testament Doubting Thomas.

Susan Niditch calls Gideon our most “pleasingly insecure” hero. Yet God loves this insecure hero. He doesn’t back away from using him.

Gideon is called to save Israel from the hands of the Midianites. Despite the God-given instructions, he’s not free from his own insecurity. Has his faith faltered? Have the previous days or years following God suddenly become nullified because he asks God for a sign? And one more sign? No. Gideon the hero struggles with anxiety just like any one of us.

Philip, one of the apostles, repeats this same scenario in John 14. Jesus tells his disciples that he is about to leave them. Things are about to get a lot worse. Philip, looking for some place to alleviate his insecure feelings, says: “Show us the Father and that will be enough.” One more sign. Then I can keep going.

God didn’t hesitate to answer Gideon. Insecurity does not offend God. Jesus answers Philip by pointing out the answer has always been his presence. He was answering his insecurity before Philip realized his own anxiety.

Gideon cannot escape his insecurity. Philip is not immune to doubts. Our repetitive pleas to God to help our uncertainty is not a sign of diminishing faith. Asking for a sign is met with God’s own reassuring words, “I’ve been with you all this time.”

The indwelling of the Spirit will not erase our anxieties. (Oh, how I wish he would remove this thorn in the flesh!) Embracing uncertainty is a part of faith. But like our own fears—our best method is to embrace the overwhelming uncertainty, learning to live in the tension between the surety of our faith in Christ and the common human reaction to ask for one more reassurance.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Request for Presence

You are my helper and my deliverer; O Lord, do not tarry. — Psalm 70.6

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Count Your Hardships

Balanced with the various ways God provided, the anxiety-inducing “what-if” turns into the hope-filled “even-if.”

Count Your Hardships
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Victorious Remnant Songs

Links for today’s readings:

Read: Judges 5 Listen: (4:36) Read: 1 Timothy 6 Listen: (3:16)

Scripture Focus: Judges 5.1-3, 12-13

1 On that day Deborah and Barak son of Abinoam sang this song:
2 “When the princes in Israel take the lead,
when the people willingly offer themselves—
praise the Lord!
3 “Hear this, you kings! Listen, you rulers!
I, even I, will sing to the Lord;
I will praise the Lord, the God of Israel, in song…
12 ‘Wake up, wake up, Deborah!
Wake up, wake up, break out in song!
Arise, Barak!
Take captive your captives, son of Abinoam.’
13 “The remnant of the nobles came down;
the people of the Lord came down to me against the mighty.

Reflection: Victorious Remnant Songs

By John Tillman

Deborah confidently led Israel out of a time of decline, crime, oppression, and spiritual torpor. Then she sang about it.

The three sections of Deborah’s song each have three phrases of three lines. The song also mentions three women, Deborah, Jael, and Sisera’s mother.

The first section (v 3-11) compares the victories God brought in the past to the one he will bring in Deborah’s day.

The second section (v. 13-21) is a wake up call to battle. It describes those who gathered for battle or hesitated to join. It describes Sisera’s army being swept away in a river, echoing Egypt’s army drowned in the Red Sea.

The third section (22-31) zooms in on Jael and Sisera’s mother. Jael kills Sisera, echoing the promise of Eve’s seed crushing the head of the snake. (Genesis 3.15) Sisera’s mother waits impatiently for financial benefits from the battle, unaware that loss is coming instead.

There are several notable themes in Deborah’s song.

Divine iteration is a biblical pattern. To paraphrase Mark Twain, God’s salvific acts don’t repeat, but they rhyme. God acts in ways similar to, yet distinct from, his previous actions. We can miss what God is doing if we expect the exact same deliverance as before. There will always be a twist of something new. (Isaiah 43.19)

Not everyone will wake up. Not everyone needs to. Despite Deborah’s call to wake up, much of Israel stayed asleep. Only a remnant responded, but it was enough. The recovery of spiritual vigor, justice, and freedom is possible because God works through remnants rather than regiments.

The lowly will overcome the mighty. Jael was not a prophet, warrior, or leader, like Deborah. She was the wife of a nomadic relative of Moses’ father-in-law. However, it was “at her feet he sank” (v. 27) not at the feet of a warrior. Sisera’s mother represents those who benefit financially from oppression, even if they don’t directly participate in it. God uses the lowly and few to bring down the mighty and many, emphasizing that his hand acts to strike down evil, repaying suffering and loss to those responsible for it.

Celebrate ahead of time what Deborah wrote about, for it will happen again. Sing victorious remnant songs. God will save in ways familiar, yet new. Don’t be discouraged. We need only a remnant of the faithful to change the fate of many. The mighty will not prevail over the lowly who trust in God.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Greeting

My mouth shall recount your mighty acts and saving deeds all day long; though I cannot know the number of them. — Psalm 71.15

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: No Asterisks

Deborah’s judgeship doesn’t deserve an asterisk…The biblical writers make no apologies or explanations for Deborah.

No Asterisks — Readers’ Choice
Read more: Prayer For Faithful Shepherds

God describes to Ezekiel what he will be like when he comes as a shepherd…a promise fulfilled by Jesus’ earthly ministry.

Prayer For Faithful Shepherds
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De-Thumbing Tyrants?

Links for today’s readings:

 Read: Judges 1 Listen: (5:08) Read: 1 Timothy 2 Listen: (1:38)

Links for this weekend’s readings:

Read: Judges 2 Listen: (3:19) Read: 1 Timothy 3 Listen: (2:10)
Read: Judges 3 Listen: (4:30) Read: 1 Timothy 4 Listen: (2:05)

Scripture Focus: Judges 1.5-7

5 It was there that they found Adoni-Bezek and fought against him, putting to rout the Canaanites and Perizzites. 6 Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 Then Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them.” They brought him to Jerusalem, and he died there.

Reflection: De-Thumbing Tyrants?

By John Tillman

People often do to fallen tyrants as those tyrants have done countless times to others.

The reverse golden rule of retribution says that when one is generous in pain and oppression, it will be measured back, pressed down, shaken together, running over. (Luke 6.38b)

We rarely get details of the wickedness of the Canaanite kings and city-states. However, the glimpse we get from the confession of Adoni-Bezek is a gruesome hint at the type of societies Israel displaced.

Adoni-Bezek had cut off the thumbs and big toes of seventy kings, forcing them to scramble for food at his table. If this is how kings were treated, imagine how he treated the poor.

Mutilations of ancient captives were common. Captives were made eunuchs, branded on the soles of their feet, or mutilated in other ways.

Some mutilations were practical. Making eunuchs prevented future dynastic threats. Branded feet made slaves unlikely to escape. Toeless and thumbless warrior kings would struggle to rise to their feet and never wield a weapon. Resistance, rebellion, and revenge were cut off.

However, the primary purpose of mutilation was humiliation and dominance. Adoni-Bezek’s victims were not only defeated, they were made dependent on him, scrambling for scraps, like beggars. It was unusual for Israel to use mutilation. Those who defeated Adoni-Bezek must have witnessed his crimes and made an exception in his case.

But what about our case? What about the tyrants of today?

We must remember that the Canaanite conquest was not a blueprint for anyone to follow, especially the church. The Canaanite conquest shows us more failure than success. Israel wins battles but their heart is all wrong. They defeat humans but remain enslaved to sin. The entirety of the Old Testament demonstrates that violence fails to establish righteousness and political change fails to bring spiritual change.

It is not wrong for us to long for tyrants to be paid back or to celebrate when God brings the mighty down. (Luke 1.52) But that is not the church’s role. When God sends retribution, he typically chooses locusts, gnats, snakes, and other plagues. He whistles for wicked empires. (Isaiah 5.26-27; 7.18-20)

Retribution is not the church’s calling—spiritual change is. That doesn’t mean politics is unimportant, but spiritual change is the key to every other kind of change our world needs. Instead of looking for tyrants to de-thumb (even some who deserve it) we should be looking for hearts responsive to the gospel.

Divine Hours Prayer: The Refrain for the Morning Lessons

Who is like the Lord our God, who sits enthroned on high, but stoops to behold the heavens and the earth? — Psalm 113.5

– Divine Hours prayers from The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summer
by Phyllis Tickle

Read more: Dethroning Kings and Powers

The destruction of Canaanite city states made theological statements, disarming the gods of Canaan’s kings.

Dethroning Kings and Powers
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Timbrels to Tears — Readers’ Choice

Scripture Focus: Judges 11.34-40
34 When Jephthah returned to his home in Mizpah, who should come out to meet him but his daughter, dancing to the sound of timbrels! She was an only child. Except for her he had neither son nor daughter. 35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and cried, “Oh no, my daughter! You have brought me down and I am devastated. I have made a vow to the LORD  that I cannot break.”

Originally published on July 28, 2023, based on readings from Judges 11.

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:
Erin, Texas — I appreciated the focus on the daughter’s faithfulness and how the community honored her despite her father’s hasty decision. It is a reminder of the goodness of God to look upon the vulnerable and those who are victims of others’ destructive decisions.

Reflection: Timbrels to Tears — Readers’ Choice
By Liz Daye
In a moment, everything changed. What was supposed to be a celebration, transformed into anguish. “Why?!” Jephthah lamented, tearing his clothes in grief. “My daughter, you have brought me disaster. You are the cause of my ruin!” Why did his daughter have to run out the front door and, in his words, ruin everything? He had crafted a plan, after all. If God granted him victory in battle, Jephthah vowed to offer the next thing that came out of his home as a sacrifice.

But who exited first? His only daughter.

Jephthah idolized the outcome of his victory. And I wonder what if instead of keeping his awful vow, Jephthah repented making it in the first place? Repentance framed by grace is an invitation that is always available. Jephthah missed it because of his own pride and fear. As I ponder Jephthah’s story, I can’t help but recall the times I have also attempted to negotiate with God for what I thought was a really good reason, whilst leaving God out of the conversation entirely.

Yet throughout Jephthah’s idolatrous plotting and failure to consider the possibility of her presence, God was noticeably silent. God never signed off on any of this mess. May this remind us that our faith is not a formula, nor is faithfulness a series of divine negotiations that we can manipulate to somehow land in our favor. What if faith is always an invitation towards humility and grace? 

And had Jephthah consulted God before making that vow, he would have remembered that God is in control, but not controlling. God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love;” love for Israel, for Jephthah, and for his daughter. And even after, repentance is always an option. Repentance is always available. Had repentance been present in this story, it bears wondering, how could it have altered the trajectory? But even here, we don’t have to wonder what God is like. Our heavenly Father would rather sacrifice himself than his children. In fact, that’s exactly what God did.

Like Miriam in the desert, Jephthah’s unnamed daughter was a timbrel towing prophetess. The daughters of Israel honored her legacy, rather than Jephthah’s. This annual remembrance points to a God who does not sign off on the sins we commit against one another, regardless of the skillfulness of our theological gymnastics. For God loves to lift the lowly.


Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Know this: The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us, and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture. — Psalm 100.2

– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.


Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 17 (Listen 8:59)
1 John 5 (Listen 3:00)

This Weekend’s Readings
1 Samuel 18 (Listen 4:30), 2 John (Listen 1:50)
1 Samuel 19 (Listen 3:43), 3 John (Listen 1:51)

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Read more about Rulers with Borrowed Scepters
Jesus is the king we are waiting for—every other ruler is using a borrowed scepter.

Rulers with Borrowed Scepters
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The Crowned Thorn — Readers’ Choice

Scripture Focus: Judges 9:15, 19
15 “The thornbush said to the trees, ‘If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!’
19 So have you acted honorably and in good faith toward Jerub-Baal and his family today? If you have, may Abimelek be your joy, and may you be his, too! 

Originally published on July 7, 2023, based on readings from Judges 9:15, 19.

Readers’ Choice posts are selected by our readers:
Brian, Washington D.C. — This is a brilliant reflection. This is yet another reason that shows how the Bible speaks to us today. Thank you so much!

Reflection: The Crowned Thorn — Readers’ Choice
By Erin Newton

Abimelek sought power through his own self-promotion, persuasion, and craftiness. He won the hearts of the people who later raised his authority above the typical judge and crowned him king. He established his slogans, “I am one of you!” “I am better than all of them!”

His immediate use of power was bloodshed. Abimelek slaughtered his opponents and set up a posse of “reckless scoundrels.” He ruled through terror and force. The ordained mark of leadership of previous judges was the presence, voice, and appointment by God. Abimelek was a rogue. He nominated himself and listened only to himself.

By the grace of God, Jotham survived Abimelek’s murderous episode. In a parable, he called the people to consider the leader they had chosen. Abimelek was not an olive tree providing oil for divine worship. He was not a fig tree bringing life-giving food to the community. He was not a vine that bears the grapes that make wine for celebrations. He was a thornbush. There is nothing beneficial to the plant that hurts you when you seek it as refuge.

The succession of authority is often a tenuous event whether the passing of power is on a local or national scale or within municipal or religious communities. People begin to promote themselves seeking to diminish the worthiness of an opponent and create doubt about anyone other than themselves. The story of Abimelek stands as an opportunity to mark the features of a bad leader.

  •  A bad leader creates a self-centered world. There is no room for sympathy, grace, mercy, or compassion unless it is self-serving.
  •  A bad leader welcomes more power. Like Abimelek, the power granted initially is quickly laid aside for more power and prestige.
  •  A bad leader divides the community. Quick to establish an “us vs. them” mentality, bad leaders avoid negotiations.
  •  A bad leader invites violence. If an opponent cannot be silenced through the passing of power, bad leaders will silence all supposed opponents through bloodshed.
  • A bad leader is not a safe harbor for the community. The security offered by the bad leader wounds the community instead.

Jotham’s parable ends with a plea for introspection. Has their appointed leader done good things? Or is their leader guilty and dishonorable? Leaders should be a joy to the community, not a thorn.

Are we appointing leaders of our churches, organizations, or governments that are more like a nettle than a balm?


Divine Hours Prayer: The Call to Prayer
Taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are they who trust in him! — Psalm 34.8


– From The Divine Hours: Prayers for Summertime by Phyllis Tickle.

Today’s Readings
1 Samuel 15 (Listen 5:46)
1 John 3 (Listen 3:21)

Read more about Marks of Leadership — Selflessness
Tests of leadership are almost always connected to selflessness.

Marks of Leadership — Selflessness

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